In a Catholic boarding school during the Nazi occupation of France, Julien Quietin, played by Gaspard Manesse as the character based around Malle, is no ordinary student, he is intelligent and different from the others. A new student arrives at the school one day and becomes a sort of intellectual rival to Julien, but, after some early hostilities, the boys begin to connect and eventually become good friends. Malle does not rely on overly dramatic sequences where not necessary as a way to build find out more...

Winner of numerous awards including the Oscar for Best Foreign Film. This is the story of a young boy's love affair with the local cinema, where he regularly sneaks into the village priest's weekly preview and censorship session. Years later now a successful film director he returns to his native town. Stunning and beautiful. find out more...

An American-German returns to the FDR in 1945 to work as a waiter on a new train, the previous one having been derailed but finds the changes superficial and the new consumerism cloaks sinister unbroken threads from the past. Haunting and hypnotic, literally. An art-house must-see.

find out more...

Roberto Benigni stars and directs this award littered Chaplinesque comic fable. In 1930s Italy, a carefree Jewish book keeper named Guido starts a fairy tale life by courting and marrying a lovely woman from a nearby city. Guido and his wife have a son and live happily together until the occupation of Italy by German forces. In an attempt to help his son survive the horrors of a Jewish Concentration Camp, Guido, an imaginative man, turns to humour, pretending that the Holocaust is a game and tha find out more...

Guillermo Del Toro's blockbusting tale of a young girl struggling to make sense of the violent world around her was a big 2006 arthouse hit. Continuing his exploration of the impact of the Spanish Civil War on his generation (it was also the backdrop for his excellent ghost story, The Devil's Backbone) Del Toro's fantasy mixes strong horror with fairytale-style aesthetics to great effect, making Ofelia's escape into an imaginary realm a poignant response to the cruel realities of her existence. find out more...